Alibaba's Cloud Business Takes Off, While E-Commerce Struggles

Alibaba's cloud business is growing fast. In the last quarter, it grew by 34%. This is a big deal because the company is investing heavily in AI. The company plans to spend at least 380 billion yuan on cloud computing and AI over the next three years. But not everything is going well. Alibaba's overall revenue only grew by 5%. This is much lower than the cloud business. The company's profit also fell by 52%. This is because of a price war in China's e-commerce market. Other companies like JD. com are also struggling. They reported a 55% drop in net profit. Alibaba's CEO said that their investments in AI are helping the cloud business grow. The demand for AI is increasing. The company even thinks they might spend more than they planned on AI. Alibaba also launched a new AI chatbot called Qwen. It is like ChatGPT. In the first week, it got 10 million downloads. This shows that people are interested in AI. The company's shares are doing well. They went up by 2% in Hong Kong and 2. 4% in New York. This year, the shares have gone up by more than 90%. Investors are optimistic about Alibaba's progress in AI. Other Chinese tech companies are also doing well in AI. DeepSeek is a startup that is making waves. It is challenging U. S. companies in the AI sector. But not all Chinese tech companies are doing well. Tencent reported a 15% increase in revenue. But Baidu's revenue dropped by 7%. This shows that the tech industry is mixed. Some investors are worried about an AI bubble. But strong earnings from Nvidia last week eased some concerns.